It might be something someone said. Maybe a line from a movie or a movie title itself. A sentence from a book. Charlie Chamberlain, a singer/songwriter/record producer, can find inspiration from all parts of life. 

“Live your life with the antenna up,” is one piece of advice he gave students at a convocation in the Olcott Center on Tuesday, December 10, where he also shared some of his music.   

Mr. Chamberlain grew up in South Carolina and has lived for 15 years in Nashville, Tenn., a place that got its nickname, Music City, for a reason. As Mr. Chamberlain said, hundreds, maybe thousands, of songs are worked on each day. Few become hits, of course, but not for a lack of energy and enthusiasm, which runs through the city. 

All it might take is building on one idea. With students gathered before him, he knew that writing was an essential part of their education. Then he uttered the phrase “writers’ block” and offered a solution. 

“Allow yourself to write something terrible,” he said. “Don't let the editor in you get in the way of it. I think of writing as a garden hose. Again, I’m kind of country. We drink from the garden hose down in Tennessee.” 

And there are times one must let that garden hose run a bit. Flush out the debris, and before you know it, the water is clean and clear. “It took you a minute,” he said. “You had to be patient. Writing is the same thing. … Give yourself the freedom to write through the gunk, through that mud, through that debris, and it will free you up so much because all of a sudden you'll get halfway down the page, and here comes a pretty good idea, a pretty good line. … You write a little bit more and chase that idea, [and] all of a sudden this terrible idea is turning into a good idea and turning into a better idea, and maybe the better idea is going to lead to a great idea.” 

Not that it comes easy. Mr. Chamberlain spends as much as nine hours a day in the writing studio. “You never know when the song will click,” he said. 

Mr. Chamberlain said one of his favorite music producers is the late Quincy Jones, whose life’s work cannot be summed up in a few words or his 28 Grammy Awards or the fact that he produced the Michael Jackson album “Thriller,” but it’s start. Mr. Jones once said, “Leave a little space for God to walk into the room” when making music. It’s a line Mr. Chamberlain has never forgotten. What it means to him, he said, is “if I am not open to a little bit of magic happening, ... I’m missing out.”  

Mr. Chamberlain’s antenna is always up, and he is always filling up “his well of inspiration,” taking notes on paper, typing notes, or as a voice memo on his smart phone. 

And the smallest thing can lead to a song. He came across the movie title “Walt before Mickey,” a film about the early years of Walt Disney before Mickey Mouse. That got him thinking.  

“What was I like before I did something?” he said. “What was I like before I met the person I love? Who was I before you? I’m in Nashville; I’m a country writer, so I thought, ‘Who was Jack Daniels before he created whiskey?’ We all know the brand, but who was that person? Who was da Vinci as a person; he wasn’t always the person you think of. So I started thinking about how to take a title and make it personal to me or universal to everyone else.” This train of thought eventually led to his song “You Before Me,” which he played on his guitar and sang for the audience.  

Mr. Chamberlain was part of the Hubbard Speaker Series. On Tuesday evening Mr. Chamberlain and teacher Grant Gritzmacher, also a singer/songwriter, were scheduled to perform and talk about their music and the craft of writing in an on-campus event sponsored by Writing Initiatives and the Katharine Brush Library.